Hello!
I wanted to re-cap our weekend in Disneyland for Halloween. If you've never been during this time, it is the best! I love all of the decorations and food they have around during this time. It was still a bit challenging post covid (no meet and greets, character dining) so things were slightly modified. This was also our first trip with the baby! She loved it! You always hear people saying you shouldn't take a baby to Disney until they can "remember it" - honestly, we have been taking the kids since they were one and they still remember most things. Natalia is nine months old, and she would smile and wave at the characters. I highly recommend taking babies! Trust me, you will enjoy watching them interact with the characters. 
Anyways! We just did a quick trip. This was our second time in Cali, so we did everything touristy the last time we came. We didn't get the Oogie Boogie Bash tickets, we did the usual 3 day park hopper. We ended up staying at the Tropicana which was directly across the street and a five minute walk from our room to the gates. 10/10 recommend this hotel. Had everything you needed and restaurants directly surrounding it (McDonalds, Panera Bread, Ihop, Denny's etc) - we also did an insta-cart order for drinks and food to keep in the room.
Our first night after checking into the room, we made our way to downtown Disney for dinner. We initially booked a dinner at Goofy's Kitchen and decided last minute to cancel. We didn't think it was worth the price and not have the full experience. That's just our opinion. Instead, we had pizza at Naples ristorante. Sadly this is the only photo I got of our food because we devoured it, ha! It was really good! Very comparable to legit Italian/NYC pizza.
After dinner, we checked out all of the gift shops, and the Lego store to pick up any souvenirs beforehand. We also made a quick stop inside the grand Californian for their Halloween treat stand and display. They have this huge Oogey Boogey made out of marshmallow fondant - I believe the sign said 600 lbs of fondant. They also have a bunch of cute Halloween cookies (the Jack Skellington cookie below)for Halloween, crispy treats, and these cookie shots. You could add regular milk, chocolate milk, almond milk, rum chata- whatever you want. Me and adri did these and just did the regular milk and they were really good.
Disneyland Park:
We started the next morning off at Disneyland Park. While getting ready, I did the virtual que for Rise Of The Resistance and we got in on the first try. Spoiler alert- this ride is amazing! please try to get it! You need to be on the Disneyland app immediately at 0700, hitting refresh. It automatically will select everyone in your party. Just make sure you have all of this information linked in the app as well as your tickets before hand. Unfortunately you can no longer visit the parks whenever you want, you will need a ticket AND a park reservation for each day. Once you hit refresh and if you are able to get in que, you will be given a group boarding number. Throughout the day you can check the app to let you know what boarding group is currently boarding. Enable your push notifications as well. Once they post your boarding group, you will have on hour to get to the ride and board. Once you get to the ride please note you will still have to wait in a line! I assumed the virtual que was so that we wouldn't have to wait in the line (covid) but that isn't the case. You will need to do the same for Spiderman Web Slingers in California Adventure. Just make sure the virtual que you're trying to get into matches your park reservation for the day. All in all, it was very easy. TIP- as told from the Rise Of the Resistance workers, the virtual que will literally be gone in 3 seconds! This is at 0700, and you can try again at 12pm, and we were told that que is gone in 5 seconds. We watched them turn so many people away because they did not have a boarding group and there is no option for stand by. Just keep that in mind.
The weather in October was perfect. mid 70's - mid 80's and a bit cool in the mornings and evenings. We just packed sweaters and were fine. We did rider swap on some rides since we had the baby. Basically Frankie and the kids would go on the ride while I stayed with the baby outside, and once they were done, you switch and the kids get to ride twice without having to wait in line all over again. Super convenient. There was a lot Natalia was able to get on as well. Pirates, Dumbo, teacups, Haunted Mansion, the little mermaid, Spiderman, Carousels, Small World, and so much more. The only ones we did rider swap for was Rise of The Resistance, Indiana Jones, Space Mountain, and the Incredi-coaster. Big thunder mountain was under construction and closed when we went 😒 - it's one of our favorites.
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| Outfit details can be found here |
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| Shirts can be found here. |
Tip- If you want to enjoy both Halloween and Christmas, plan to visit the parks on or about Oct 30, 31 and by Nov 1, the castle will be almost if not fully decorated for Christmas. I realized this on our first park day, Oct 29 - the castle already had icicles up, and by November 1 (we drove back to Texas that day) all of the beautiful Christmas garlands had already gone up overnight. I enjoy watching the shows on tv on how they transform Disneyland overnight and they literally do. It's really awesome to experience. If we were to do this again, I would plan on just Oct 31, until mid week the first week of November. Some of the Christmas treats were already out as well.
The ride I was most excited for was the haunted mansion. They completely transform it into the nightmare before Christmas theme- so cool!
Star Wars land / Galaxy’s Edge
We didn’t get any food here except the blue milk which we love. And i got this coffee from Docking Bay 7 - it’s called the cold brew black caf - 10/10 recommend! It was really good!!! And yes, those are cocoa puffs on top 🙂
… and the cutest little thing in all the galaxy! 🙂
I found all of Natalia’s outfit on amazon. See everything here.
Red Rose Taverne- Candy Apple cold brew - 1/10 - I did not like this. I took the first sip and wanted to spit it out. This was not good. I wish i would have read the reviews on this prior to ordering. It just had a bitter taste all the way, nothing good about it.
The Halloween gray stuff however, is phenomenal as always! We get this every trip.
Loaded bbq pork fries, and the blood orange slush from Galactic Grill - 10/10 for both of these!
Some of our favorite foods in this park that didn’t get a photo because we devoured everything were:
Maurice’s treats- churro gears (mini donuts) and the cheddar garlic bagel twist with marinara dip 10/10 for both.
Jolly Holiday Bakery- any of the soups and sandwiches, and baked goods
Bengal Barbecue- bengal rice plate, pork belly skewers 10/10!!!
Tropical Hideaway- dole whip
Corn dogs from the carts.
Toon town was already decorated for Christmas. It’s so cute! Also, how cute are the teacups all lit up at night?!
California Adventure-
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| Coffee cozy linked here |
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| Outfit details here: http://liketk.it/3qSDJ |
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| We got the fried chicken and chicken fenders from Flo’s V8 cafe for lunch. 10/10! |
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Quantum pretzel with beer cheese dip from Pym test kitchen. 10/10!  |
Churros -
My favorite thing was trying all of the seasonal churros. There were a bunch but we only bought one, and split it so we could try them all.
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| Maleficent churro - found at the churro cart near the castle |
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| The bride churro- covered in white chocolate dusting. Can be found at the churro cart by the haunted mansion. 10/10! |
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| The groom churro- can be found at the churro cart in critter country, next to Winnie the Pooh ride. 4/10 - it was okay, just tasted like unsweetened cocoa powder. |
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| Horchata churro - 10/10!!!! Can be found at the churro cart next to corn dog castle in California Adventure. Comes with the condensed milk dipping sauce. |
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| Fruity cereal churro- covered in crushed fruity pebbles 10/10!!! Found in Carsland in California Adventure in cozy cone 1. |
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| Matcha and gummy worm churro topped with strawberry sauce - found at Willie’s churros in California Adventure, in the grizzly peak area. 10/10!!! This was so good!! I almost didn’t get it because it looked nasty and i have never had anything matcha before. So glad i got it! |
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| Mummy churro - 10/10! Found at the churro cart in California adventure, Hollywood area. |
The only churro we didn’t try was the pumpkin spice churro (didn’t feel like trying it) and the caramel apple pie churro in grizzly peak because it actually sold out. I think my favorite one was the bride and horchata churros.
TIP - utilize mobile ordering as much as you can. Link your debit card to your account, select a restaurant and a time slot and done. You walk up to the window regardless of how long the line is and they hand you you order, bypassing the line. I noticed later during the day a lot of the places would be out of time slots so make sure to place your order early because the lines will be ridiculously long. You can select whatever time you want, and you have i think 30 minutes in that time frame to grab your order. So if you know you want soup from Jolly Holiday bakery for lunch, place your order for around that time in advance. You can also adjust your time as well. Say you place an order and you're stuck in line at a ride longer than anticipated, you can select a different time if available. Not all restaurants have the option for mobile ordering, but most did. We swear by mobile ordering. We are more “grab and go” type of people than sit down. We typically will do one sit down meal and the rest mobile order and we’ll find a spot to sit for a few to eat and go.
By the way, I found my Disneyland mug!!!! On the last trip I checked every store looking for this mug and couldn’t find it. I later found out that its sold exclusively at the Starbucks INSIDE the park! Needless to say as soon as we got through the gates that's where we went first. They had the original blue one and this purple one is the newest. I went back on our last day to grab the blue (cause yolo) and they were gone. California Adventure has their own as well.
Also brought this tumbler with me that was an amazon find. Kept my water ice cold! Has lots of designs and characters to choose from. See it here: tumbler
I absolutely recommend visiting the parks during the Halloween/fall time. Everything is decorated so pretty and the food is amazing. To read about our last Disneyland trip, click here.
Also, make sure to check back in a few weeks as we head over to Walt Disneyworld for Christmas! I am most excited for this trip as we have never gone around Christmas time.
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